"Belief is desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned statements for the solace and private pleasure of the believer.... Whoso would deserve well of his fellows in this matter will guard the purity of his belief with a very fanaticism of jealous care, lest at any time it should rest on an unworthy object, and catch a stain which can never be wiped away.... If [a] belief has been accepted on insufficient evidence [even though the belief be true, as Clifford on the same page explains] the pleasure is a stolen one.... It is sinful because it is stolen in defiance of our duty to mankind. That duty is to guard ourselves from such beliefs as from a pestilence which may shortly master our own body and then spread to the rest of the town.... It is wrong always, everywhere, and for every one, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence." [http://falcon.jmu.edu/~omearawm/ph101willtobelieve.html]

Comments:

I've never agreed with Clifford on that. We believe things and act on them without proof all the time, every day. And what constitutes "sufficient proof," anyway? It seems subjective. Even in empirical realms, things are rarely proved beyond question.